Weapons of Shia Jihad: The Transnational Evolution of EFPs and IRAMs from South Lebanon to Iraq

Introduction

When a U.S. drone strike assassinated General Qasem Soleimani in January 2020, the Pentagon swiftly attributed to the Qods Force commander direct responsibility for the deaths of 608 American soldiers in Iraq between 2004 and 2011. This casualty count, while politically contested, reflects a deeper operational reality: these fatalities were inflicted predominantly by Iraqi Shia muqawama groups employing weapons systems that originated not in Mesopotamia, but in the laboratories and battlefields of South Lebanon during the 1990s. The transnational diffusion of these technologies—particularly Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs) and Improvised Rocket-Assisted Munitions (IRAMs)—illustrates a deliberate strategy of capability transfer from Hezbollah to allied Iraqi factions, mediated by Iranian logistical and technical architecture. This analysis examines the technical characteristics, tactical evolution, and geopolitical implications of these weapons systems within the broader framework of Shia militant innovation.

The Hezbollah Prototype: EFP Emergence in 1990s Lebanon

Technical Genesis and Design Philosophy

The Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP) represents a uniquely lethal evolution in anti-armor weaponry, distinguished by its intentional design to defeat heavily fortified targets through kinetic energy penetration rather than mere blast effect. The earliest documented deployment of EFPs on modern battlefields occurred in South Lebanon during the 1990s, where Hezbollah’s engineering units refined the technology through iterative combat testing against Israeli armor. This period of Lebanese experimentation established the foundational design parameters that would later proliferate across the region.

The EFPs subsequently detonated in Iraq generally conformed to a sophisticated material architecture: a precision-manufactured concave copper disk liner positioned forward, with high-energy explosive compound densely packed behind this liner. Upon detonation, this configuration initiates a complex physical transformation. The weapons travel at supersonic velocities and can pierce through several inches of military-grade armor with the abrupt violence of a fist punching through drywall. The detonation sequence generates a massive blast overpressure wave capable of physically blowing the doors and turrets from vehicles proximate to the device. Simultaneously, the concentrated heat and hydrodynamic force of the copper penetrator shatter a vehicle’s armored plating and structural materials inward, propelling razor-sharp shards of Teflon and steel ripping through the interior compartment at lethal velocities. The thermal signature generated by EFPs is sufficiently powerful to ignite engine fuel compartments, setting vehicles ablaze and creating secondary casualty-producing effects.

EFPs detonate after being armed via two primary modalities: remote frequency activation or insulated command-wire initiation. Command-wire triggers, while requiring physical emplacement, permit insurgents to detonate the device from a concealed position up to 100 meters from the blast site, preserving operator survivability. Remote-frequency triggers extend this standoff distance significantly, granting insurgents a 300-meter operational range. Once armed, EFPs are typically triggered using a passive infra-red device attached to the munition itself; this sensor can, for example, detect the heat signature of a passing vehicle engine and automatically send an electrical current to set off the explosion within the EFP’s casing, enabling autonomous engagement without operator intervention.

EFPs in the Iraqi Theater: An Escalating Tactical Dialectic

The 2005 Proliferation and American Countermeasures

EFPs became insurgents’ weapon of choice in Iraq after the United States began to systematically “up-armor” its military vehicle fleet, particularly its vulnerable Humvee platforms, in response to escalating attacks from local muqawama cells beginning in 2003. This tactical adaptation by American forces inadvertently created the perfect target set for EFP employment, and their use against U.S. forces proliferated rapidly starting in 2005. To combat this lethal threat evolution, the U.S. military pursued a multi-layered defensive strategy: first adding yet more armor plate to its vehicles and increasing deployment of Bradley Fighting Vehicles (“Bradleys”), which offered superior protection. When these passive measures failed to provide meaningful protection against EFPs’ concentrated penetrative power, the military pivoted to active countermeasures, developing technology that jammed the radio frequencies insurgents used to trigger EFPs and fielding a specialized device known as a Rhino, which was attached to the front of combat vehicles and simulated the thermal signature of the vehicle’s engine to prematurely trigger EFPs ahead of the target.

The Adaptive Insurgent Response

With each American technological advancement, however, EFP warfare evolved to become progressively more stealthy and sophisticated, demonstrating a learning curve inconsistent with indigenous Iraqi capabilities. For example, when the United States introduced radio-frequency jammers into theater, insurgents rapidly adapted by modulating the frequencies of their remote activators across non-standard bands. When the United States began attaching Rhinos to its vehicles, insurgents countered by angling their EFPs backward relative to the road, accounting for the early triggers and ensuring the penetrator would still intersect the vehicle’s hull. This continuous adaptation cycle suggests an external pipeline of technical intelligence and engineering support feeding directly into Iraqi militant cells.

The External Capability Pipeline: Evidence of Hezbollah and IRGC Involvement

Technical Complexity and Manufacturing Signatures

The sophistication of the devices encountered in Iraq was fundamentally beyond the capacity of individuals with only basic training in conventional IED construction. Insurgents’ ability to systematically defeat the United States’ sophisticated countermeasures would not have been possible, as documented in the Barker Report, “without the active involvement, training, equipment and support of Hezbollah or the IRGC.” Lieutenant General Thomas Oates testified similarly before Congress that “the rapid capability development of the Shi’a militia in Iraq from a weapons training and tactics procedure, the speed with which they achieved this capability and their ability to adapt led him to believe that there was external assistance provided.” These assessments are corroborated by exhaustive U.S. military forensic analyses of IED and EFP detonation sites, which enabled technical intelligence teams to identify unique signatures left by bomb makers and to map the emerging enemy tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) being systematically employed across the battlespace.

Supply Chain Forensics and Geographic Provenance

U.S. intelligence ultimately traced tens of thousands of devices specifically designed to interfere with the United States’ counter-EFP measures from their origins in Iran, Syria, or South Lebanon through smuggling networks into Baghdad. Moreover, the U.S. military concluded through signals intelligence and captured personnel interrogations that Iran and Hezbollah “provided training both inside and outside of Iraq for Iraqi militants in the construction and use of sophisticated IED technology and other advanced weaponry,” establishing a comprehensive capability-transfer program.

Operational Emplacement Tactics

As Barker explained, “EFPs are extremely complicated systems to build,” so Iran and Hezbollah “would build EFPs complete, and bring them in as a complete total system, ready to go.” The emplacement process itself was designed for deniability and speed: Iraqi operatives would acquire a local vehicle and equip it with a false floor. The team would then stage a breakdown on a target route, pull over on the side of the road, and raise the hood to simulate mechanical trouble. Meanwhile, operatives concealed beneath the false floor would pull the floor out, crawl out from under the vehicle, lay the device in the predetermined position—often camouflaged with roadside debris—and drive away, completing the entire evolution in minutes.

Improvised Rocket-Assisted Munitions (IRAMs)

Technical Architecture and Material Components

Improvised Rocket-Assisted Munitions (IRAMs) represent a distinct category of indirect-fire weapon system, functioning essentially as rocket-launched IEDs constructed from large metal canisters augmented with scrap metal fragmentation and ball bearings, typically initiated by an impact-type fuze. The metal canisters are usually propane gas tanks that have been drained of their contents and filled with high explosives—up to several hundred pounds of main charge. In essence, IRAMs are airborne versions of roadside IEDs that are usually propelled by either a 107mm or 240mm military rocket motor and launched from fixed or mobile sites by remote control means such as a cell phone, cordless phone or command wire. Because IRAMs are launched in an arced trajectory, they can be aimed over perimeter walls that enclose forward operating bases and other military facilities, functioning in a similar manner to a conventional mortar but with substantially larger warheads.

IRAMs typically consisted of an empty propane gas tank filled with C4 plastic explosives, nails, and chain pieces in order to create a shrapnel effect which would be truly horrific across a wide area. The propulsion system is a standard 107-millimeter rocket motor that was removed from the rocket itself and directly attached to the improvised warhead, creating a hybrid munition that combined military-grade range with lethality.

IRAMs in Iraq: Kata'ib Hezbollah and the Southern Theater

IRAMs are a signature weapon of Kata’ib Hezbollah (“KH”), an Iranian-backed Shi’a muqawama Special Group that operated predominantly in southern Iraq. KH was formed by the legendary explosives expert Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (formerly of the Badr Organization) in 2007, and since its inception the group has been responsible for numerous operations against U.S. targets in Iraq. IRAMs first appeared in Iraq in November 2007, and, like EFPs, were typically employed against Coalition Forces in the Shi’a-dominated areas of southern Iraq where KH maintained freedom of movement and local popular support. These munitions were supplied by the IRGC-Quds Force almost exclusively to KH.

KH perpetrated attacks against Coalition Forces in Iraq using both EFP weapons and some sophisticated mortar rounds that were rocket assisted, specifically IRAMs. However, IRAMs deployed by Iranian-backed Special Groups in Iraq tended to be inaccurate because they lacked any guidance system and were not manufactured to military specifications, which often caused stabilization issues during flight and resulted in wide dispersion patterns. This inaccuracy relegated IRAMs primarily to area-denial harassment fire against large fixed installations rather than precision engagement of mobile patrols, contrasting with the sniper-like employment of EFPs against vehicle convoys.

Conclusion

The operational history of EFPs and IRAMs from Lebanon to Iraq reveals more than a simple weapons transfer; it demonstrates the maturation of a resilient model for asymmetric conflict. Iranian and Hezbollah actors provided not just arms, but a complete ecosystem of support: design principles, specialized manufacturing tools, advanced components, adaptive tactical training, and continuous innovation in response to enemy countermeasures. This system enabled local groups to inflict disproportionate costs on a superpower, fundamentally shaping the course of the Iraq War and cementing a legacy of strategic influence that culminated in the calculus surrounding figures like Qasem Soleimani. The EFP and IRAM stand as enduring testaments to how technologically inventive, transnational militant networks can redefine the modern battlefield.

• This article is written by Abu Dhar al-Bosni (lokiloptr154668 on X) and does not necessarily reflect the views of A.E.P. (the owner of the website), nor does it necessarily represent an agreement with these perspectives.